hi! for the writing ask meme: melancholy, thunderstorms, stars, & heart! (also, i just made a writeblr as well so i love this idea <3)
Chloe buried her heart on the smallest hill.
Her sisters had warned her against the dangers of leaving a heart to sleep under an open sky, but the thought of locking it in a box and shoving it into the back of an old wardrobe made her skin crawl. Chloe wanted her heart to be kept somewhere beautiful. The smallest hill, which was barely anything more than an oversized hummock and fit snuggly inside the winding chain of taller ones, was the perfect spot.
In the earliest days after the loss of her heart, Chloe often found herself pensive and somber for no particular reason. There were moments when she would be eating a bagel or walking across a room, and she’d have to stop to breathe because the weight of the world was shifting on her shoulders. She shied away from warmth and soft things and often had to force herself to practice smiling in a mirror lest she forget how.
It was her eldest sister, Pearl, who guided her through the change.
“It’ll all be worth it, you’ll see,” Pearl said once when she caught Chloe heaving in the downstairs bathroom. She smoothed Chloe’s hair back and smiled at their reflection in the mirror. “On your first bright night, everything will become clear. You’ll forget why you ever wanted a heart in the first place.”
Chloe later repeated the words to herself whenever the hollowness in her chest felt like it might swallow her whole.
The day when she finally saw all the cows lie down in a cluster in the fields, and all the spiders spill from their webs, was the last Sunday of the month. Pearl nodded approvingly. They knew a bright night must be coming, and the best ones always happened on Sundays.
The sisters spent all day in preparation. Chloe was so anxious she could barely walk straight. When the night fell, they didn’t turn the lights on. A few faint ribbons of silver sneaked through the windows, until the clouds came to smother the moon and stars and turned the world to blackness. For hours, Chloe and her sisters sat on the threadbare carpet of the living room, perfectly quiet to best hear the walls creak in face of the wind’s unrelenting advances. The old house was too proud to give in, too protective of the heartless girls it had been hiding for generations.
Just before midnight, Pearl stood up. “It’s time,” she said.
The sisters followed her to the front door. Chloe held her breath as Pearl turned the knob and let the vehemence in. She gasped when the wind struck her with all its might, so forceful she was sent grabbing for the wall to keep upright.Then Pearl was shouting something but Chloe couldn’t make out the words. The sisters bolted forward, one after another, head first out the door and into the bright night.
Chloe hesitated only for a moment. The first step she took was probably the hardest of her life. She felt the hardwood floors shake and splinter under her bare feet. Her bones clattered just as wild. She threw herself onto the front porch just as the bright night began.
Lightning danced around the old house, racing after the sisters that scattered across the fields. The white light they cast across the horizon quickly burned itself into Chloe’s eyes. She thought she saw Pearl, in the time between blinks, running to the hills with a lightning bolt at the fingertips of her outstretched hand. The wind carried her reckless laughter.
For the first time since she’d buried her heart, Chloe felt a spark in her chest.It cried for the blazing thunderstorm that raged all around her. She finally understood what Pearl had been telling her, what her sisters had been living for. Her heart fluttered somewhere under the grass on the smallest hill.
Chloe thrust her arms up. She touched it before she heard it before she saw it.
Lightning was made for heartless girls like her. It spun around her and sank into her chest to fill her up with white fire. It fit perfectly.
Chloe dashed down the porch steps and laughed into the thunderstorm. A veil of lightning trailed after her.
(everyone go check out chloe’s new writeblr, I want her to like me)
annaxmalina
turnnoffyourmind
baratheonpilled
yousharknotpass
